The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

28 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the State Department is by far themost active, with hundreds of profiles for nearly all of its various bureaus, embassies, consulates andmissions.The U.S. Agency for International Development also maintains a central profile, as well as a separate careers page and pages for most of its international projects. The four smaller foreign affairs agencies (Foreign Agricultural Service, Foreign Commercial Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the International Broadcasting Bureau) are harder to locate online, and draw audiences proportionate to their much smaller size. Agencies like IBB and FCS are often simply referenced by profiles associated with their parent agencies (the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Department of Commerce, respectively). Some, like APHIS, have also released relatively simple mobile applications. In contrast, because it is somuch larger and has actively sought to enhance public diplomacy by embracing digital technologies, the State Department’s newmedia network reaching out to foreign and domestic publics is wide. Statemaintains an array of social media profiles numbering in the hundreds, along with some cutting-edge mobile apps tomeet the demand for ever-quicker responses to events. These efforts bring attention toU.S. policy, to the department and to the Foreign Service, but their development andmarketing require funds and personnel. Tight budgets can limit online activity. In addition, craftingworkable guidelines for the use of social media has caused significant headaches for public diplomacy practitioners. Social Media and Public Diplomacy Before Facebook and Twitter made communicating with people around the world easy (and helped fuel historic events, as appears to have happened in the Arab world and elsewhere), diplomacy reliedmore exclusively on words and ideas exchanged in person between select individuals, wherever they were accessible. Today, thoughts can be exchanged between anyone with an Internet con- nection. The State Department has leapt into engagement in public diplomacy, proliferating social media accounts and reorganizing the bureaus, such as International Information Programs, that man- age them.There aremore than 200 Facebook pages and 120 Twitter accounts for U.S. embassies and consulates alone. Dozens of U.S. missions now have profiles on Flickr and Tumblr, and a growing number are creating profiles on YouTube, Instagramand even Pin- terest. As of November, there were 20 official blogs ( DipNote being the first) run out of the State Department inWashington, D.C. A comprehensive list of the department’s social media profiles can be found at www.state.gov/r/pa/ode/socialmedia.These foreign-focused pages based at posts around the world serve several purposes. Often relaying local news and policy, sometimes in the host-country language in addition to English, they enable foreign audiences to acquaint themselves with the United States and American officials who introduce themselves online.The social media profiles also enable locals tomonitor U.S. policies as applied within their countries. While access to these pages, and thus the number of their fans or followers, vary fromcountry to country, State has prided itself on giving local populations a window through which to appreciate the work of the U.S. Foreign Service. As stations of assistance and resources for Americans living and working abroad, diplomatic posts also use social media to serve expatriates and Foreign Service employees in these countries.The usual content of their Facebook and Twitter pages ranges from daily updates on State policy and highlights of new programs and diplomatic visits—perhaps an address by #SecState @JohnKerry or #POTUS@BarackObama—to critical information disseminated during emergency situations. On July 3, 2013, for instance, when theMuslimBrotherhood was deposed by Egyptian armed forces, Embassy Cairo regularly updated its Facebook and Twitter pages. Even after the embassy evacuation, day-to-day updates continued. Facebook and Twit- ter also provided an emergency number for American citizens who needed to speak with a duty officer, and kept their audience updated on all official announcements by theWhite House and the State Department regarding the coup and resulting incidents. This points to another use of social media: for consular work. Through social media U.S. missions can reach out to the American community inmost countries more quickly than ever before: the old phone trees could only spread the word one phone call at a time. The Bureau of Consular Affairs is already quite active on social media. Travel.gov, CA’s travel information service, has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed.The Smart Traveler app fromCAwas intro- duced in 2011, providing useful information by country including “Know before You Go,” fact sheets on U.S. relations with the country and information on contacting the local U.S. embassy or consulate. The app was recently taken offline for “redevelopment,” but will be relaunched in the comingmonths. On an informal level, the “blogosphere” is verymuch a part of the modern Foreign Service.